


Headphones

by deducery



Category: BBC Sherlock, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, Post-Reichenbach, Suicide, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-29
Updated: 2013-08-29
Packaged: 2017-12-25 00:28:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/946514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deducery/pseuds/deducery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But there is nothing to say at all. There is no happy ending, and anyway no one wants to hear the story of a sad man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Headphones

**Author's Note:**

> Done for a one-word prompt on Tumblr. Word: headphones. I cheated by using bits of lyrics from Regina Spektor's beautiful song Eet, but hopefully it's fine all the same.

 

_You spent half of your life trying to fall behind_

The world is spinning and John's vision has gone blurry but he pushes himself up off the pavement anyway, and he finds Sherlock has already plummeted down to his morbid little end. A sudden influx of people seem to gather around the body, and John makes a desperate attempt to push through the crowd and get to the corpse of his best friend -- "God, no-- let me through, he's my friend," he says, nauseous -- but a woman shushes him and pulls his hand away just as he grabs Sherlock's wrist and gets the barest feel of his pulse.

There is nothing. Sherlock is gone.

_You're using your headphones to drown out your mind / It was so easy, and the words so sweet_

John does not allow himself to grieve. His limp is back. It is grueling even to get up in the mornings, taxing emotionally and physically; but he takes a week off work only because Sarah makes him. The attention from the press dies down quickly (suitable, he figures, as he's nothing whereas Sherlock had been everything to everyone, including him) and when they're done stopping him in the street to ask about the private life of Sherlock Holmes and what John will do without his old flatmate, he figures it's about time to get used to a life of false security and horrible _loneliness._  With Sherlock gone he no longer has to worry about everyone being out to get him, no longer gets to feel that thrilling paranoia. He no longer walks the battlefield.

Sometimes he comes home and sits himself down in his armchair and stares for hours and hours at nothing. Sometimes he tries to pick out the little things, the hidden mysteries. The fly in the ointment. But he's no Holmes.

Sometimes he cries. But he's fine. He's not grieving.

_You can't remember; you try to move your feet_

* * *

John socialises, now. He goes round to the pub for a pint with Greg even when he doesn't really want to (but then he never really does want to, does he?). He sometimes happens to pass by the Yard and partakes in a bit of small talk accordingly. He notices Donovan never looks him quite in the eye and when she does, it's out of pity. It's irritating.

Mrs Hudson, saint as ever, says the fresh air is good for him. He enjoys her company now more than ever, partly because when he accidentally makes two cups of tea he can pretend he was only expecting her in. She is much too intelligent to be fooled by that; she goes along with it regardless, thanking him dearly whenever she heads up to 221B and he happens to be sat at the table, inviting her for a cuppa.

He tries to take his own life one night. He has his gun. But he doesn't pull the trigger, and the day afterward he tells no one, because there is nothing to say about it. _Hello, Greg,_ he'd say casually, as if he were bringing up dreadful weather. _Last night I pointed my illegal firearm at my own head and tried to kill myself._

But there is nothing to say at all. There is no happy ending, and anyway no one desires to hear the story of a sad man.

In the fray of his mind he is alone.

_Eet._


End file.
